


Duplicity

by jane_potter



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angry Sex, Angst, Dirty Talk, Explicit Sexual Content, Identity Porn, Kink Meme, M/M, Rough Sex, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-05
Updated: 2010-03-05
Packaged: 2017-10-17 18:09:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jane_potter/pseuds/jane_potter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set pre-TDK. Bruce decides that the popular young politician running for DA bears watching... and if his involvement with Dent pulls Dent away from Rachel, then that's just coincidence. But it's not long before Dent gets tangled up not only with playboy Bruce Wayne but with the Batman, caught between them, addicted to both and not knowing they're the same person, and if that was as screwed up as it got then Bruce would have counted himself lucky. As it is, he takes as much of Dent as possible, any way he can get it, and damn the rest. A slippery slope never looked so good before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Duplicity

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday to nemo_r! All the dirty talk especially dedicated to lady_bathos, who demanded it (ages ago, I know).

_Flip that coin and give it to me, Harvey, please, give it to me... Come on, come on-- heads I'll go down, tails I'll spread--_

And Harvey wakes up with a jolt. The stiffness in his limbs tells him that he's been laying very still in his sleep, tangled up sweaty and stale in the sheets with a slow hot pulse in his belly, the heat unmitigated in his stifling small apartment. Assistant DAs in Gotham don't get paid well unless they're sitting in someone's pocket and taking blood money, and law-abiding ADAs don't dare leave the window open at night no matter how airless the room is, so really it's lose-lose.

Well. ADA until the election, at least. Two months to go and it's crunch time. Posters and buttons and half-written speeches clutter his apartment, his own face looking stern at him from countless angles.

But that's not what Harvey's thinking of when he rolls onto his back, spine cracking loud in the silence, and slides a hand down his pants almost wearily. He's got to be in court at 7:30-- in four hours, his alarm clock tells him-- and he can't take this case on what little sleep he's barely managed to get. So he'll wear himself out and get some rest, and maybe Rachel will stop frowning at him about _How do you expect to win this election when you always look half dead, Harvey_?

Harvey's got himself in hand, pulling steady and long. He has to kick back the covers a little, has to work up saliva in his parched mouth and lift a hand to spit into his palm. It strikes him without warning that he's not had to do that in-- in months.

Bruce never let Harvey do what he could do instead, and never took his hands to what he could do with his mouth. Not since Harvey accidentally interrupted Rachel at a lunch date ( _it's not a_ date _, Harvey, we're just old friends_ ) with Bruce in a restaurant that Harvey only dared to set foot in because the mayor had invited him for a meeting, and they shook hands and Bruce's eyes were mocking and dark and Harvey's stomach kind of lurched like it hadn't since college. And it might have started with Rachel and Bruce, but Bruce saw the lust in everyone's eyes but hers and was just too damn quick on picking it out of Harvey's eyes, so it ended up with Harvey and Bruce in the washroom--

\--against the wall--

\--pinned and panicked and freaked and so overwhelmed that Harvey just submitted blindly--

\--kissing, kissing hard, a strong tongue prying between his lips and teeth until it felt like Bruce was about to devour him whole--

\--and so they hadn't done anything else, had ended it with Harvey wide-eyed and shaking slumped against the wall and Bruce patting him on the shoulder, smirking, tucking a card in his breast pocket like it had been any old business deal, had ended with _I hope you're not planning on going after Rachel, Harvey, because I don't want to hurt my best friend by stealing her man_ \--

\--but Harvey could pretend that there had been hands and groping and rubbing along with the career-ruining danger, because it has him gasping and spilling into his hand, stickyslick.

Sleepy already, Harvey fumbles for a tissue and accidentally finds his cellphone instead, clattering on the nightstand. He picks it up and stares at the keypad.

Bruce's number is on speed dial, from that card he'd tucked in Harvey's pocket. Bruce never goes to bed before five AM, anyway.

Bruce always swallows.

Harvey could do it. Had never dared, but he could. Dial. Ring. Answer. Call-- call Bruce away from whatever the hell he was doing, stupid slutty tremendously attractive man that made Harvey's hands tremble. Wait ten minutes for a sports car that never went the speed limit, unlock the door and let him in, make it dirty and fast and then still have time to sleep and shower before all good ADAs were due in court. Or just call and... they could talk. Bruce could talk, rather, because his mouth was good for a lot more than just sucking and swallowing.

Good for things like _You know what I'm doing, Harvey_? and _Oh, you like it, you know you like it_ and _Yeah, baby, like that, don't stop, keep touching yourself_ and _Three fingers, Harvey, deep in-- you know I'm really doing it, right? F-fucking myself like it's you, baby, like_ that _, fuck!_ \--

Hesistating just slightly, Harvey's better judgment wins out and he sets the phone down and finds the tissue he needs. Rolls over and flops against the pillow and kicks drowsily at the covers. The phone's temptation sears the back of his neck until he falls asleep again.

Temptation like that is dangerous, but damn if it's not kind of awesome.

*

Jim Gordon never answers Harvey's calls. Five months he's been trying to get a hold of the man, since rumour became unspoken fact that the head of the newly-formed Major Crimes Unit was Batman's cop, the one responsible for that floodlight burning a hole through Gotham's grimy night skies.

Harvey knows when he's being avoided. He gets the feeling that he's not going to get his hands on Gordon until, as DA, he's actually got the authority to drag the man into his office and get some things straight. Like the fact that Harvey is not Carl Finch, and he will not be sitting on the sidelines. And there will be a certain introduction made. And that is not debatable.

Harvey just doesn't know how much of his desire to meet the Batman is business, and how much is, well... desire.

*

Bruce brings a date to the party. Actually, he brings three.

To the fundraiser that he's throwing for Harvey.

This is good news, Harvey tells himself. No rumours. No sideways angles on the unlikely support. And since Bruce threw his vote in, the polls say the election in two weeks is going to be not so much a contest as a landslide. They're calling him DA-elect already.

But when Harvey shakes hands with Bruce, after the playboy just made a speech that's going to be printed and reprinted word for word in a dozen newspapers tomorrow, that's got people whispering _Looks just like his father_ , he grips Bruce's hand as tightly as he can, burning with jealousy. Harvey grins all-American blue-eyed posterboy and looks grateful while trying to hurt Bruce as much as he possibly can in front of all these cameras.

Bruce smiles blandly and kind of crushes his hand.

Harvey can't hold his smile, can't stop the wince. "Hell of a handshake," he manages, drawing laughter.

An hour later, Harvey finally gets him alone. Bruce does it the same way he did at the restaurant-- just waits for Harvey to go to the bathroom and surreptitiously follows him out into the empty hallways, slipperyquiet when he wants to be.

"People are still here," Harvey gasps, between angry kisses. "How long do you really-- uh, really think we can be gone-- together?"

"Five minutes tops," Bruce murmurs against his throat. His teeth are not cautious, not at all mindful of the fucking _hickeys_ that always seem to spring up wherever his hot hungry mouth lingers, seemingly ignorant of the fact that Harvey can _not_ show up at this party at this time in the campaign with _lovebites_ on his neck after disappearing with Bruce fucking _Wayne_.

Nearly frantic, Harvey shoves at him. Bruce shoves back, grinning, because in his panic Harvey forgot that Bruce takes any advance against him as an invitation to reciprocate the same. He found that out the one time he lost his temper and punched Bruce in the face and then got a fist in the stomach, found himself doubled over and knocked back onto the bed with a _whuff_ of lost breath. Barely getting his breath back in time to stop the next cuff, Harvey shouted for him to stop, and Bruce just looked puzzled and then disappointed.

Which taught Harvey that Bruce Wayne was a scary person.

And he remembers this again as Bruce's teeth close on his Adam's apple in warning. "You move and I bite you," Bruce says, muffled and low, the tip of his tongue grazing Harvey's skin. "I _will_ leave marks, Harvey."

"Bruce, _no_ ," he hisses, and this is panic, this is fear.

"Come on, Harvey-- I think you can get me done in five minutes, huh?"

 _What_? Harvey thinks, his heart racing desperately. _No I can't_! But that's Bruce's hips against his, the flat insistent thrust of a pelvis up against him, Bruce's sly smile against his skin--

Bruce's eyes flashing wicked when he pulls back just as Harvey's about to really panic, and grinning he says quietly, "Just kidding."

*

In the end, Harvey doesn't need Gordon to introduce him to Batman. Of all things, it's a _mugging_.

No. No, that's not the word at all. _Let's not sugarcoat it, Harvey_ \-- assault and attempted rape. The mob still has big connections, big money, and they wanted to see this shiny idealistic brand-new DA splashed all over the front pages, beaten and degraded in his first week on the job, Gotham's rising hope crushed to pieces.

Bloodied and bruised and hurting so bad his head swims, Harvey lays crumpled against the railing of the train platform and watches dazedly as Batman breaks arms and ribs with systematic brutality, his fists inexorable, every movement fluid and furious and oh god _beautiful_. Is there really something chivalric in Batman's actions, in thinking the Batman had come just for Harvey, or is that just Harvey's possible concussion talking?

But no-- because when the platform goes quiet and the great cowled head turns his way, pantherine and predatory, the first thing that comes out of the Batman's mouth is as incredulous as that monstrous growl must ever get: "Dent?"

Harvey tries a smile out of habit, but he tastes fresh blood and his eyes water. "So you're the man they tell me is saving this city," he mumbles, trying to lift his head. No. Can't. Neck-- his neck, wrenched when they caught him in a headlock that nearly strangled him--

Blood runs down his face, over his mouth. Harvey coughs painfully and tries to wipe it away, trembling fingers to his nose-- is it broken? Then the platform's dim lights go away, big black predator crouched before him with gauze in gloved fingers. Harvey takes it shakily and the shadow retreats just slightly, an angling of the shoulders that gives Harvey his space.

"Can you stand?"

Oh, good question. Harvey wipes his face, spits more blood, struggles to sit up and tugs his open jacket tighter around himself like it could protect him any better than it did when they kicked kicked _kicked_ him in the ribs. "Little help," he croaks finally.

Movement without further words, limbs unfurling from beneath the cape. Harvey takes the hand on his arm as permission, and he reaches up and grabs for a muscular shoulder, fingers hooking between heavy Kevlar plates. A big arm slides around his back, lifting. God-- strong. Harvey doesn't get to his feet so much as he just manages to keep them on the ground once they're set there.

"Don't think I can walk home like this," Harvey mutters, cautiously pressing the gauze to a sharp pain on his scalp and getting a renewed flare that tells him yes, it's another cut.

Silence. He looks up dazedly to find the Batman's head canted at him, grim mouth and emotionless eyes giving away nothing, but there's definitely a question in his pose.

What?

Oh.

Hand shaking, Harvey reaches down and fumbles with his pants, leaning hard against that huge armoured bulk. He sways suddenly, head spinning, then coughs an embarrassed shaky laugh as he does up the zip, tries to button his jeans single-handedly. His belt hangs down halfway, denim loops torn. Worse, the trembling's worse now, so bad that he can't hold onto the button, can't manage to do his pants up-- it's broken, the button. Ripped right open.

God.

Oh god.

Another laugh, just this side of hysterical and fast approaching the borderline. "Sorry," Harvey says automatically, "sorry. I just--"

Silence.

"I just--" A desperate breath in, dizzy, and stuttering out in a trembling half-sob. "I just thought the train would be better because it was just rebuilt and the platform near my apartment is new and I was just going _home_ and I didn't think--"

And the next one _is_ a sob, dry and wracking as everything hits Harvey like a wrecking ball, as it hits him that he just came _this close_ \--

He cries. Yes, he cries. He stumbles down the stairs to the street leaning on Batman's shoulder, blindly trusting himself to be led because Harvey can't see a thing, blood and tears and snot running down his face. Clutching the armour for support, Harvey staggers across the street, trips over the curb and nearly falls. And there's the car, the goddamn tank everybody's seen on the six o'clock news, roof sliding open like a maw opening up. He nearly falls in, half lifted.

When that great black shadow slithers into the seat next to him and the seats jerk, sink, roof snapping shut once more, Harvey can't help but grab for an arm, anything...

Any other time, he'd be surprised that what he gets are cautious hands gripping his shoulders, the forward tilt of a cowled head that Harvey's subconscious reads correctly as the Batman's tacit offer to lean on him again.

Right now, Harvey just crumples forward and presses his forehead against Kevlar plates and sobs, huge and grating and grinding his teeth, until he's too drained to move and everything is kind of okay again in the emptiness. He stays that way, numb and exhausted, right up until the Batman eases him into bed with fresh gauze taped over his cuts and pulls the covers over Harvey already passed out and dead asleep.

*

"So what's this?" Bruce asks, and his tongue runs a hot broad swipe over the scabbed cut at the edge of Harvey's hairline, slicking back his hair to reveal the rest of the gash. "Should have told me before that you like playing rough."

"Stop it," Harvey snaps, cuffing Bruce across the head hard. Bruce's head snaps to the side, and then back to stare down at Harvey incredulously. "Bruce, I told you to get off me. I mean it. This _hurts_."

"What's all this?" Bruce demands again, ignoring Harvey completely and pulling his shirt farther open, still pinning him to the mattress. A spring digs hard into Harvey's back because he's pinned against the side of the bed that he usually avoids. "Now I really wanna meet whoever it is you're boning. Looks like _fun_."

"I'm not--" He jerks his shirt out of Bruce's hands and struggles to sit up at the edge of the bed, forcing Bruce back off of him. "I'm _not_ seeing anybody else, and goddammit you will listen to me when I say that _hurts_! Not everybody's an insatiable manwhore like you!"

The silence rings. Bruce stares at him with surprise, something _different_ in his face, and then it occurs to Harvey that he's never actually seen Bruce look anything but smug and lewd and shallow. And he's never actually called Bruce that kind of name to his face. And he might have just stepped over the thin line of tolerance he's been tiptoeing for months. And in the time it takes for Bruce to call a newspaper or political opponent, this could very well be the end of Harvey Dent's career.

"Sorry," Bruce says instead, very softly. He turns on his heel and heads for the door.

"Hey," Harvey says automatically. "Bruce, stop!"

He does. Looks back without speaking, one eyebrow raised.

"Come back," says Harvey bravely, kneading the bedsheets in nervous hands. "It's okay."

 _Yeah, and what if he's not okay with_ you _any more_? demands something inside him. Apparently Bruce still is, though, because he smirks and walks back and gets down on his knees in front of Harvey, disaster averted by hairline margins that don't bear thinking about. They both know that Bruce Wayne is only on his knees because he wants to be, ungodly gorgeous as he pushes Harvey's legs apart and settles supine between his thighs, eyes hooded and smouldering, that whoresmile on his pretty mouth.

"Sorry, Harvey," he purrs, razors in his voice. "Lemme make it up to you."

*

Harvey tapes the note to his window and goes to brush his teeth, feeling a little like a fool. Fifth floor of the building, though, that's the only way other than the door that anybody could get into his apartment-- anybody meaning Batman-- and he's not putting that note out on his door in the hall. No, just no. He's not that desperate.

Yet.

If it comes to that, he'll use the floodlight on top of the MCU, Harvey decides. He finishes washing up and turns out the lights, checking the window once more to make sure it's not locked. He's going to feel really stupid in the morning, probably. Like Batman spends his time checking in on people who weren't _actually_ hurt or anything. Like he gives a damn.

 _Except he did_ , Harvey thinks, and a thrill runs through him as he lays down in bed, still a little ginger and sore in the ribs. Easing onto his side, Harvey rubs his crotch absently, then realises he's facing the window and flushes. Right. Masturbating now is pretty much deliberately putting on a show, since he's acknowledged that it's reasonably probable that Batman will show up at his window.

Unexpectedly, the thought makes that passing thrill turn into a big shuddering tingle. He _could_. He wouldn't, no-- god no, not with a note on the window that says _I want to talk_ , because Harvey can't imagine being that kind of slutty and he knows that's taking too much liberty with a cold, grim man who regularly puts criminals in the hospital with his bare fists, and what kind of a betrayal of their work would it be, to take Batman's consideration that one night and repay it with smut that the man probably wouldn't even _want_ \-- but the thrill is, Harvey _could_.

And he could pretend it would work, could imagine it would get him hot kisses and powerful hands shoving under his clothes, big muscular arms wrapped tight around him and bearing down--

Some other night.

The room is suddenly cold because Harvey is flushed, warm. He closes his eyes and forces himself to sleep. Waiting up won't change anything. Either the Bat will come in, or he won't.

_Come in-- into my house. My bedroom. Come inside me. Oh, god._

Harvey groans into the pillow. This is _not_ helping.

*

It's ten o'clock at night on a Saturday, and Harvey has nothing to do. No statements to prepare, no arguments to look over for the dozenth time, no speeches to rehearse that he doesn't already know by heart. This is a strange and unusual state of being.

He cleans the apartment, throwing away old takeout containers, straightening his files and putting in a load of dirty dishes in the washer. He goes so far as to rearrange his bookcase in alphabetical order, a task that is somewhat of an in-joke at the courthouse. There is nothing on TV that holds his interest. Harvey's almost ready to give up and just go to bed early when he thinks of it. Shoving his hands into his pockets in annoyance, he finds his cellphone.

Harvey stands frozen for a long moment. He slowly tests his shoulders, his neck, his back, checking for soreness, but nothing pulls painfully. Then he pulls out his phone and hits the speed dial before he can reconsider how much of a bad idea this is, making some twisted booty call to the city's richest womanising bastard, who probably gets these calls all the time, and from more attractive people than irritable thirty-something lawyers with an itch to scratch and some kind of messed up kink for too many risky men at once.

"Bruce," he says without preamble. "You got time to come over?"

" _Depends_ ," comes the chuckle. " _Why do you want me to come?_ "

Double entendre, predictable and worn out, but Harvey's stomach still kind of lurches at the innuendo. God, what is he, fifteen? Fine-- two can play.

"I want you--" No, that's not strong enough-- "I need you to fuck me, Bruce. I need you in me right now. Are you coming? I need to have it hard and fast, fuck, Bruce, right now. It's been too long."

A sharp inhalation. A long pause.

" _Fuck. Ten minutes_."

Longest ten minutes of Harvey's life, but really he'd rather it was longer, because the less time Bruce takes, the more traffic laws he's breaking.

Nervous, jittery, Harvey paces and curses himself. Stupid fucking idea. Goddamn _hot_ idea. Dammit!

He stops pacing and leans back against a wall, cupping himself through his jeans, pressing and rubbing. Lets out a soft grunt, unbuttons his fly. Fuck _this_ \-- when Bruce shows up there will be no waiting for clothes, for lube, for stretching. And Harvey doesn't want that.

Batman would do it hard. A man who wears full plate Kevlar like it's nothing and practices more martial arts than any of the experts that the police called in, of course he would.

The knock comes without warning, pounding, and doesn't stop until Harvey pulls the door open. Bruce surges in and meets him with a ferocious kiss-- Jesus _Christ_ are there people in the hallway?-- and Harvey slams the door without breaking for air, tangling a hand in Bruce's hair, yanking. Bruce growls.

"Look at you, hard already," he snaps, biting down on Harvey's jaw. "Bet you were waiting for me, Harvey, touching yourself, wanting it so bad you couldn't wait. And you call me a slut..."

"Shut up and fuck me," Harvey snarls. "Don't talk."

"'Course I'm gonna fuck you. Fuck you so hard-- you better be ready, Harvey, _now_ \--"

"I said _shut up_. Do it hard. From behind."

Finding Harvey's mouth again, Bruce shoves his tongue in. Harvey bites it and swear to god Bruce _whimpers_ , and for a moment Harvey's not sure he shouldn't be the one fucking _Bruce_.

Given permission to get violent, Bruce grabs a double fistful of the back of Harvey's old university sweater and pushes him backwards until they slam up against the dish washer in the kitchenette. Squirming, Harvey gets onto his toes and sits on the edge of the running washer, the machine rumbling beneath him, and thank god for coincidences it may drown some of the noise they're going to make. He gains a foot of height over Bruce and lords it over him, literally, forcing his head back with fists in his hair and kissing him hungrily. Bruce grabs his hips and jerks Harvey forward, and Harvey spreads his thighs and locks his ankles behind Bruce's back, shuddering at the hands fumbling into his open fly.

"Off," Bruce mutters, and he could be talking about Harvey's jeans or telling Harvey to get off the dish washer. Either way, Harvey fights his jeans down, squirming and clumsy, as Bruce tears his own fly open on Italian wool slacks that probably are going to be totally ruined by this. Harvey slides off the washer and turns and it's totally unnecessary for Bruce to slam him down over it, but _fuck_ if it doesn't make Harvey even harder.

"Don't bother," he gasps, feeling slippery fingers pressing at him, knowing Bruce has already slicked himself. "Hard, Bruce, I need it hard."

"Oh god, Harvey..."

"Shut up," he snarls for the third time. "Learn some goddamn self control. I didn't ask for your commentary."

That does it. Bruce curses and bites his shoulder and slaps his ass, the flash of humiliation quickly overridden by pain, discomfort, sudden and stabbing. It wouldn't even be enjoyable if Harvey wasn't exactly after pleasure.

They've never had angry sex before.

He likes it.

A lot.

And if Harvey pretends that he doesn't know the face of the man that's pounding him bent over half dressed in his kitchen-- if he closes his eyes and pretends it's the hot metal hood of a tank rumbling underneath him, dark in a back alley somewhere forsaken-- it's not exactly his fault. They've never done it like this, and Bruce feels surprisingly heavy and muscular bearing down on top of Harvey, his weight lending itself easily to what Harvey imagines the Batman must feel like-- living granite, gargoyle flesh and sweat.

The only reason he doesn't scream the wrong name is because he doesn't know what name to scream.

*

"You shouldn't walk this way anymore. You're not just a nobody, now."

Harvey stops dead, looks back over his shoulder into the darkness with his jacket's fleece collar catching on his stubbly chin. It's past midnight and he needs a shave. Doesn't see anything, but obviously not. That disembodied rasp over the whisper of miserable drizzling rain makes his insides shiver.

"I went out for a sandwich," he says defensively. "I'm working on a case. It's not like I go out and try to get myself killed."

"Really."

There's a thrill of victory that he got a response, sarcastic as it was, although somehow the Batman manages sarcasm by words only, without inflection.

"Follow me home and make sure, then," Harvey says without thinking. "Might as well come in, while you're at it."

Silence.

He doesn't know if Batman takes him up on the invitation or not, at least until he's standing back in his apartment and takes off his jacket, goes to hang it up on the hook and finds the Batman hulking silently in the entranceway behind him, ghostly silent. Harvey actually jumps backwards, his heart racing. "Jesus."

Silence.

Harvey's mouth is very dry.

Silence.

At last, there's a shift and a faint impatient noise. "What do you want?"

Oh. He was supposed to start talking. "I-I..."

Oh fuck. He just invited the city's most wanted vigilante inside, Harvey Dent harbouring criminal fugitives, and all he can come up with is _Do you want a cup of coffee_?

"About that night," he says abruptly, awkwardly. "When I-- I didn't mean to-- but you--"

 _Fuck fuck fuck--_ no _, not fuck, Harvey,_ not _a good thought right now, he's standing right_ there--

Deafening silence, until Harvey's run down and got his foot so deep down his throat he can't breathe anymore. With what that sounds like a monk's patience, Batman says, "Is that it?"

Burning with shame, Harvey looks away.

"You can kiss me if you really want to."

His head snaps around so fast that he almost gets whiplash. " _What_?" and it comes out too loud, but Batman doesn't blink. Patient, granite man.

Finally, Harvey just settles on, "So how'd you know?" and it comes out courtroom cool, unruffled prosecutor Harvey Dent.

"You talk in your sleep."

"You check up on me."

"You left me that note. You know I do."

Harvey shrugs. "Thanks for saying something earlier," he says, a touch bitterly. Then he has to kiss Batman, because the smirk curling at that grim mouth is mocking answer enough and Harvey's had about enough of that, even if _oh_ it is beautiful.

Feeling the scratch of his stubble against that stubborn chin, Harvey inhales grimy Kevlar and tastes sour breath, hard scents for the shockingly pliant mouth that opens for his hungry tongue, passive, almost submissive, and were it anybody else Harvey would even think _shy_.

Suddenly uncertain, Harvey falters. They don't touch at any other point than their mouths, him and Batman, and he's come on too strong. Is he allowed to touch? Did that permission extend to kissing like this, or was it really _kiss on the lips, kiss on the cowl_ and has he just fucked it all up? But then the Batman tilts his head a bit, the slightest cant downwards, nudging his mouth more firmly against Harvey's, and it's okay. This is like talking-- as in, Batman waits on Harvey to do it, and if he's lucky he'll get a brief, cool, frustrating response that leaves him impossibly panting for more.

He may be a man of stone, but Batman's mouth is hot and wet, his lips surprisingly soft. Harvey runs his tongue along flat, even teeth, strokes the ridges of the roof of his mouth, teases his tongue and is rewarded with a nip. It's nerve-wracking, like walking blindly into the dark without anything to tell him what he's doing wrong or right, and Harvey can't, he _can't_ displease this man, this hero-- no, just no.

He tries harder, kisses more fiercely and meets a subtle tightening of the mouth, a hitch of breath that could be good or bad. Then it seems that Harvey's being much too aggressive and he backs off, the lightest of touches, barely a graze of the lips that somehow is suddenly the tenderest of lover's kisses, and Harvey _knows_ that he is not imagining the uncertainty of that tongue tracing against his lips.

"Goddammit," he whispers. "Am I doing it wrong? Say something."

"You can't do wrong, Harvey," Batman breathes back, and a hot rush of shivers goes down Harvey's back. "Not to me."

Heart pounding, oh god those words are his air, his oxygen from that mouth that tempts like the darkest of cravings, carnal and precious. Harvey _needs_ , he needs to breathe again, swallow those praises from a man who wouldn't waste breath on lying. He seals their lips together and leans in, desperate for contact, dragging them together, hands roving over hard black plates and vulnerable seams of rough fabric-- too many, it seems, the cloth unmistakably snagged with stitches repairing the holes slashed by knives or god forbid bullets lucky enough to find the cracks in the armour. But then, hands clutching at those broad shoulders, nails scraping the Kevlar, there's no mistaking the stiffening flinch.

"I'm sorry--" _Fuck fuck fuck_ \-- "I didn't mean to. I'm sorry, I--"

He backs off fast, hands up, running in reverse at two-hundred miles per hour as if enough space and apology might soothe down the Batman's hackles before they rise.

"Harvey."

"I know I shouldn't have--"

And then gloved hands grab him, fucking massive on the back of his neck, cradling his skull effortlessly, and jerk him forward into a searing toe-curling kiss that leaves Harvey standing breathless and dizzy on tiptoe against that massive armoured chest, their lips nearly touching and connected by a glistening bead of saliva.

"I need to patrol. You have work. You can't ask me to stay tonight."

"Oh. Right." Harvey knows he would have, too. Then it occurs to him, slowly, like a rising supernova. "Not... tonight?"

Another kiss, chaste, and some strange affectionate nuzzle, the Batman's lips grazing his forehead as he draws in a breath of Harvey's hair, his scent, like melancholy and tenderness.

"I'll find you when there's a chance."

There's a hand on Batman's chest, gently pushing him away. Harvey is almost surprised to find that it's his own.

"We have work to do," he says quietly.

The smile, surprised and genuinely pleased-- oh god.

That smile gets him through the night and even the next week, and it gets him off without fail on all the nights in between.

*

With the ghost of the Batman's breath on his face, the memory of hungry hands clutching his hair, Harvey thinks he's over Bruce.

Then, sitting in his office one day with his feet up on the desk, flipping news channels over Chinese takeout that one of the aides dropped off for him, Harvey catches a flicker of Bruce's sleek grin. He surfs right past it before registering that this is Bruce's serious media grin, his I'm-working-now smile, touched with the confidence and razors of a multi-billionaire businessman. He flicks back to the press conference before he can stop himself, and it's his undoing.

Harvey gets himself off so hard that his wrist aches for the rest of the afternoon. He stuffs the tissues into an empty takeout carton and buries it in the trashcan, then gets nervous about how suspicious it looks that the day's lunch garbage is right at the bottom, so he digs the evidence up and puts it on top, then gets fidgety again and hides it about halfway down. He takes at least ten minutes in the bathroom anxiously straightening his suit, his hair, his tie, guilty as all sin. Harvey spends the rest of the day glancing nervously into every mirror and reflective window he sees, convinced that everybody can smell the come hot on his hands, see it branded on his forehead that _I just jerked off to Bruce Wayne's press conference in the middle of the day at City Hall_.

Finally, at the end of a far-too-long day, Harvey gets wearily into his car and just sits there for a minute, staring at the steering wheel. He pulls out his coin and looks at it, turning Lady Justice's profile over and over in his fingers until the metal warms. Fifteen-odd years of muscle memory want him to flip the coin, and suppressing the reflex takes an effort.

What would be the point?

Harvey could flip, but between Batman and Bruce, he doesn't know who he'd choose to be heads.

*

Whimpering, Harvey bites down on the pillow and arches, desperate for contact with his faceless shadow. The weird scrape of his shoulder blade against the huge, crooked stitches on the Batman's left pectoral is exotic, erotic beyond measure.

Behind him, over him and _in_ him, Batman mouths his shoulder and drags blunt teeth across the nape of Harvey's neck. His tongue sears as it darts around the curve of Harvey's ear, dancing wickedly against cartilage before teeth nip his earlobe sharply. Harvey whines helplessly, shuddering.

"Oh fuck," he gasps, the same meaningless thing he's been saying all night, cursing and praying far more than he usually does. It would be a name he cries out, but he doesn't have one, no, not a name or a face beyond the cowl that was discarded onto the floor sometime between closing the blinds and stripping off his shirt.

Harvey had been fumbling at his clothes in pitch darkness when he'd heard the click of Kevlar somewhere nearby. He'd thought it was just the removal of a few necessary plates until he was smothered in the embrace of bare, scarred arms. That blind groping of hands over sweat-sticky granite flesh had been something like heaven, but Harvey damn near came then and there when he felt the nudge of a bare nosetip against his chest as Batman sucked on his nipple and Harvey had realised that the man had _taken his mask off_.

"Fuck, yes," he says again, breath rattled by the frantic snap of hips against his, and the Batman's utter silence would make this entire thing beyond awkward if his furious rutting thrusts didn't tell Harvey just how badly the man wants him, too. Harvey thought Bruce had taught him good sex, but it's the _Batman_ and that, _that_ sets a fire in his veins that had Harvey practically whimpering from the first kiss of the night. "Oh, oh _Christ_ yes, uhn, yeah, Bruce, _god_ \--"

All movement stops so suddenly that Harvey has a moment of vertigo, like somehow in his blindness he might have just tumbled off the bed and not known better. And then, a grinding, incredulous whisper of, "What?"

"No," Harvey says instantly, reeling at his own stupidity, "no, no. I didn't mean-- I'm sorry. He-- I-- it's over, it is. I wasn't thinking about him, I just--"

And in the blackness, Batman shifts slightly, menacingly, skin whispering against the sheets. "Who is he?"

"Nobody," Harvey says, trying to think straight despite the hands sliding slowly up his thighs, a deliberate glide of callused palms towards his core. "It's over." And, saying so out loud, he realises that it is.

Without warning, the Batman lunges and twists and Harvey is weightless in the air for a wildly disorienting second before he thuds back against the bed, head bouncing against the mattress dizzyingly. By the time Harvey's finished trying to regain his equilibrium, Batman has him pinned flat on his back with his legs spread apart and up-- and Jesus, that strength, to just flip him like it was nothing... Harvey gulps for air, wincing as unforgiving hands push his knees towards his chest so far that the tendons pull painfully, tension ratcheting up with agonising slowness.

"What is he to you, Harvey?" comes the question, velvety deep in its baritone softness with just the barest catch of gravel underneath.

"Nothing." Harvey squirms, choking back a gasp. Batman's hands grip his calves like iron, showing no signs of easing up. As the pain climbs to a blinding crescendo, Harvey breaks and cries out, "I swear!"

The pressure on his legs eases slightly and the tendons throb. Harvey shivers, feeling sweat beading on his face. He swallows hard. Then, with a shift of his dense, heavy muscle, Batman slides his cock back into Harvey, pressing against new places at this change in angle. Harvey's skin crawls with a delicious shudder.

"Who are you with now?" demands the Batman, buried as deep into Harvey as he can be.

"You," Harvey says instantly, unsteadily. He's rewarded with another long thrust, the softest of pleased exhalations.

The strain of his knees pressed towards his chest makes it hard for Harvey to breathe, but that doesn't stop the pounding in his veins. Smouldering bursts of pleasure begin to coil below the pit of his stomach as Batman fucks him with terrible slowness, each deliberate slide forward going on and on, the pressure on his bent legs increasing as Batman presses deeper and deeper into Harvey until the fullness and the pain reach nearly unbearable heights, and just as Harvey's about to _scream_ it's finally over, receding, all that muscle and overwhelming force easing back for Harvey to catch his breath desperately in the few dizzy seconds of respite before the next thrust.

And despite it all-- because of it all-- oh _Christ_ , Harvey feels his toes starting to twitch helplessly in the first stirrings of orgasm, the hot flutter below his belly beginning to tighten. Oh god, oh _fuck_ , the Batman starts to move faster, plunging into Harvey with steadily increasing speed.

"Who do you belong to?"

" __You," says Harvey desperately, the muscles of his belly drawing tight, lifting his hips, and he can't help it. "You, you..."

"Who do you belong to?"

" _You_!" Harvey howls, self-control fraying as the frantic tremble of oncoming orgasm reaches the same fever pitch as Batman's furious thrusts pounding into him. " _You_ , fuck, you, it's you, you, _fuck, yes, you_ \--"

His cries climb to a high staccato wail that shatters into a shout of release, tumbling, spiralling down, ecstatic and feverish and fervent as Harvey kicks and bucks out his orgasm against the Batman's reassuring granite strength, taking immeasurable relief in every second of futile struggle against arms that are never, ever going to let Harvey fall.

Finally, sated and thoroughly used, Harvey finds himself laying sprawled against the bed, tangled up in the Batman's arms, his stretched legs splayed open slackly. The sticky splatter on his inner thighs speaks of Batman's release, silent as ever but no less gratifying than Harvey's, judging by the tremble that lingers in the man's stomach muscles, still spasming with aftershocks.

"It's you. I promise you're the only one," Harvey pants, running his fingers through hair that's been trapped under the cowl all night, matted and oily but no less unbelievably amazing for the simple fact that it's Batman's _hair_ , thick, damp and gorgeously curly with sweat.

There's a hesitation, long, and then Batman rumbles softly, "I know," his breath teasing Harvey's throat. "I know."

Harvey stares into the dark for a long time as they lay curled together, suddenly cold, and even the _shush_ of Batman's breath against his shoulder can't stir anything in him, because in those faint words it sounded like Batman was trying to tell himself a lie.

*

There's a good time to break up with Bruce, and a lot of bad times. Harvey doesn't know what that good time might be. By default, he picks a bad time.

Bruce freezes in mid thrust, the tip of their noses nearly touching with the sudden way Harvey turned his head to look at Bruce just seconds ago. And no, he didn't fucking _plan_ it to be like this, or he'd have done it when he wasn't being _rammed_ through the mattress, but it was like he'd reached a breaking point, like desperation-- as though all of a sudden he couldn't stand one more second of Bruce's touch, one more heartbeat of time wasted on mindless mindblowing sex.

"We're not doing this again," Harvey repeats, into the dead silence.

Bruce stares.

"...What?"

Wordlessly, Bruce lets go of Harvey's legs, his whole body falling numb and slack with what looks like shock. Harvey's legs slide down from Bruce's shoulders, to the mattress, and the silence stretches. It doesn't feel awkward. It doesn't feel like much of anything-- anything to Harvey, at least, because Bruce is poleaxed, stunned-- _hurt_?-- and Harvey can see that but it doesn't make him feel guilt or anything else, either.

He's just. He doesn't know.

Quiet.

Like everything inside him went really quiet.

Punchline-- breakup during sex, tables turned on the playboy. Good joke. Everybody laugh.

Curtains.

"Why?" is the only thing Bruce says, the confusion familiar, the softness not.

"I don't need this as much as I used to," Harvey says simply, pressing his palm to the side of Bruce's face and staring into the startled depths of the man's dark, liquid eyes, "and you never needed this at all."

"I did," Bruce insists softly, still looking shocked by the entire thing. "What would you do if I told you... that you meant something to me?"

Harvey's fingertips circle aimlessly on Bruce's cheek for a moment before Harvey says, "I'd believe you. Something, maybe. But not a lot."

Bruce's face-- it changes, seems suddenly overcome by some internal decision. "Harvey," he says quickly, and there's intensity in his eyes, steel in his voice. "Harvey, I need to tell you that--"

" _No_ ," says Harvey sharply, shakenly, interrupting. Then, more calmly, "No, Bruce. Don't. Don't go there. Don't try to bring love into this. I don't feel like that. You know _you_ don't."

Slowly, slowly, Bruce lowers his eyes, turns his face and kisses Harvey's palm. "All right," he murmurs at last. "Don't say I didn't try."

"Try what?" He frowns, suspicious. "What are you going to--?"

Bruce smiles. "Don't worry," he says lazily. "I'm not going to do anything stupid."

But Bruce Wayne's idea of stupid... "Like?"

A roll of the eyes. "Call the press. Tell someone. Relax, Harvey. Our secret's safe with me."

"You're a good kid, Bruce," Harvey says. His eyes crinkle in sad affection as he runs his fingers through Bruce's hair. "You just need to calm down. Try a little harder at some things." He snorts a laugh. "A little less hard at others."

Bruce rumbles a shocked laugh. "I'm not a kid."

"Yes you are," Harvey tells him, but it's not bluntness, it's gentle simple fact.

Bruce turns his head, takes Harvey's wrist, kisses it. "One more time?" he asks softly, sloe-eyed and vaguely melancholy.

"Just once," Harvey agrees, after a moment. What can one more hurt, if that's what it takes to make Bruce let go?

The breath goes out of Bruce in a long sigh and it's like all his bones go with it. He slithers down against Harvey, chest to chest, kisses him sloppy and desperate. Harvey meets him halfway, coaxing and soothing until Bruce finally settles to something less like he's trying to eat Harvey's soul out. They lay like that for a while longer, Bruce running his hands up and down Harvey's biceps as if memorising every muscle.

A pulse starts to beat, a new one, not the one going strong and hard in Harvey's throat. It's in the rhythm of the kiss, steady and fervent; it's in their hips and thighs rocking together slowly, grinding out fresh arousal against each other; it's in the way they start to breathe together when the kiss permits. It starts in the air around them and sinks in to the bone, settlling in Harvey's brain like a distant thunder that drowns everything else beyond Bruce.

Bruce's hands slide down, slippery over sweat-slick flesh, tracing, caressing-- too goddamn _gentle_. Never gentle, not them. But let him, just this once.

He thrusts back into Harvey, sliding deep and pushing, pushing until they're pressed together as close as they go. Harvey's eyes roll back a little bit and he can't stop a grunt, because _god_ , every time, every goddamn time Bruce does this, he makes Harvey remember acutely why affairs are so fucking _dangerous_ to a politician-- to any man, really. Every time, Bruce makes him want, makes him whine, makes him fall apart. Every time. It's like nicotine, except that Harvey was at least smart enough to not even _start_ with that.

"Fuck," Bruce whispers, rocking slow. The muscles of his chest shift as he moves, sweat playing in the contours, fucking beautiful. Harvey reaches up to brace Bruce's shoulders, his head framed to either side with Bruce's fists clawing knots in the pillow. Taking his time about everything, godawful wonderful slow, Bruce keeps his head hung low, eyes shut, dark sweaty bangs hanging over his eyes.

He looks about ten years younger with his hair rumpled forward. Maybe that's why he always keeps it so impeccably groomed.

"Yeah," Harvey murmurs, less a word than a breath, when Bruce hits the spot. He gasps a little, tips his head back and shuts his eyes. "Do that again."

And again, and again, and again again again until Harvey groans out loud, hoarse and desperate, his thighs clenched hard against Bruce's hips, quivering like tight wires strung through his body, and Bruce shifts a hand to touch Harvey's hair, petting thick matted gold that he mutters things into like _oh, please_ and _god_ and _yeah, yeah, yeah_ , almost sobbing if Bruce Wayne ever sobbed but he doesn't, so it's a whine, a whimper.

It doesn't occur to Harvey until after Bruce is licking the come off his stomach, his wet tongue searing against oversensitised nerve endings, that they just made love. That wasn't a fuck, wasn't a screw or a lay or a bang, and the thought is so staggering that Harvey feels his hand itch for his coin, just to hold until things make sense again.

 _What the fuck_ , he thinks, staring up at the ceiling with Bruce's weight settled against his legs, head on his stomach like a faithful dog. Harvey's hand goes on its own to Bruce's hair and pets it gently, fingertips carding through the fine wisps at his temple.

"God help me," Bruce murmurs then, voice barely there and so miserable that Harvey goes still with the utter _strangeness_ of it, "but I wanted you so much I was willing to have you any way I could."

That's not Bruce Wayne, not at all, and if anybody knows Bruce it's Harvey. But then... he must _not_ , not really, or the fact that Bruce Wayne knows guilt and helplessness and what sounds like abject _misery_ wouldn't come as a goddamn shock. And Harvey _does_ know how to read emotion in voices silences and everything in between, and this strikes him as real-- more real than half the bullshit Bruce tosses at him, not even caring that he knows Harvey knows damn well it's all lies.

Harvey lifts his head and looks down, touches Bruce's face with his hand and his gaze, tracing sleek handsome contours, searching. Bruce's eyes are looking back up at him, just quiet, dark pools with still depths.

"At first I just wanted to keep you away from Rachel," Bruce admits, unashamedly. His voice is different already, steadier, in just the space of time it took to look up, and Harvey halfway thinks he was imagining that miserychoke of emotion. "But then I fucking wanted _you_. If you knew what I felt when I realised that," he adds, laughing in that way he has that makes Harvey surrender an amused snort despite himself.

"Rachel's a good partner. Idealist, even still. Hell in the courtroom," Harvey says, that being the only part of the conversation he can actually think of a contribution to. Bruce makes a sound like agreement.

This should be the part where Bruce has to break the mood like it's some kind of compulsion, doing something stupid and lewd like cracking a dirty joke, licking Harvey's face without warning or suddenly sliding his hand down to thrust two fingers into Harvey's still-slippery ass (and he only did that once, but Harvey never knew before then that he could turn into a begging _slut_ in three seconds flat).

Only he doesn't. God, of all the times for Bruce to stray off the script...

While Harvey's distracted being annoyed, Bruce sits up and looks down at him all rumpled, and says with his voice deep-quiet like his eyes, "Forgive me."

Instantly, Harvey feels guilty that he was irritated for a second by this. Bruce looks like somebody's about to cut his throat. Harvey can't have been _that_ wrong about how Bruce feels-- can he?

He stares. There's something important here, and he's supposed to get it, but he doesn't. "Of course," he says anyway, after a moment.

Harvey can't explain his deep, wrenching disappointment when Bruce doesn't catch the difference. Care about something? Bruce Wayne? Never. Of course not.

The smirk slides on-- _and now back to your regularly scheduled program_. Harvey rolls his eyes and flops back against the pillows, doesn't really feel interested in watching Bruce's unashamed nudity as he dresses. All the scars that used to make him fucking _wonder_ just don't catch his attention any more. His fingertips and his lips have known scars far more sacred, more important than those collected by a klutz billionaire with money to burn on extreme sports and whatever kind of terrifying sex life he wants.

Bruce checks his hair in the reflection of the window glass, then looks down at Harvey still naked and sex-sticky on the bed with some kind of misplaced softness in his eyes. Somehow Harvey never figured Bruce for the sentimental type, reluctant and clinging at the end of a relationship. "Be seeing you."

"No, Bruce," Harvey tells him, now beyond pity and fighting annoyance at the playboy's every word, every movement, every _thing_. "No, you won't."

But Bruce smiles like he's got a secret between his teeth, keeping it hidden back behind the barest tug of his lips. "Yeah," he says, "I will."

Harvey doesn't try to argue. He's wasted too much breath on Bruce Wayne already, and even if he won, what would be the point? What could he possibly gain that he doesn't already have?

He's got a good ADA, a decent department. He's got a halfway trustworthy ally in the police. He's got a city. He's got Batman.

When Bruce walks out the door, it doesn't hurt at all.

After all, it's not like Harvey's losing anything important.


End file.
